Damaq v1.01

Vity · Post by **Vity** » Mon Sep 25, 2006 21:18

Hello,
I would like to introduce you first version of my application for computer draughts.
It uses international rules and you can play against computer (AI). The AI level is not still comparable to other professional applications - maybe in the future versions?

It also contains
- tools for an analyse of game position (editor, advanced moves history)
- support for PDN (Portable Draughts Notation)
- support for skins and Look&Feels.
- other misc functions

The application is written in Javaso you can run it almost anywhere.
To run you will need the Java Runtime Enviroment (at least version 5.0).

Download: Damaq 1.01 (2.7 MB)

Your comments are appreciated.

Screenshots:

Version history:

Code: Select all

4st October 2006 - Released 1.01 version
Added - French translation /thanks to Yves Hirel!/
Fixed - decorated border (frame) did not match to Substance Look&Feel
Fixed - list of available moves allowed multiselect
Changed - Substance L&F update to version 3.0
Changed - decorated borders (frames) are switched off by default

Vity · Post by **Vity** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 14:48

I am also still looking for translators - native speakers. If you would like to help me with a translation into your language (esp. Dutch, German, Spanish,..., exclude French - we are already working on it), please contact me here or at admin/@/wordrider.net. I'll send you back short instructions how to do that.

Thank you

Hanco Elenbaas · Post by **Hanco Elenbaas** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 18:58

http://www.ffjd.fr/Web/site/forum/forum ... sujet=3931#

Patrick KOPP wrote:DAMAQ V1.0 / Nouveau logiciel (Informations)
Message envoyé par Patrick KOPP Le 26/09/2006 22:11:27

Bonsoir,
----
J'ai joué une partie avec ce nouveau logiciel, voici niveau "Grand Master"
----
[Event ""]
[Site ""]
[White "Dammeur"]
[Black "Damaq 1.0"]
[Round "1"]
[Date "2006.09.26"]
[GameType "20"]
[Result "1-0"]

1. 32-28 17-21 2. 37-32 20-25 3. 41-37 21-26 4. 34-30 25x34 5. 39x30 14-20 6. 30-25 19-23 7. 25x14 10x19 8. 44-39 11-17 9. 40-34 7-11 10. 34-30 17-21 11. 31-27 12-17 12. 50-44 17-22 13. 28x17 11x31 14. 36x27 9-14 15. 33-28 14-20 16. 38-33 8-12 17. 42-38 12-17 18. 47-42 20-25 19. 46-41 25x34 20. 39x30 17-22 21. 28x17 21x12 22. 33-28 15-20 23. 44-39 4-10 24. 39-33 2-8 25. 30-24 20x29 26. 33x24 19x30 27. 35x24 23-29 28. 24x33 10-15 29. 33-29 15-20 30. 38-33 12-17 31.
42-38 20-24 32. 29x20 18-23 33. 28x19 13x15 34. 33-28 17-21 35. 28-23 8-13 36. 32-28 21x32 37. 38x27 15-20 38. 37-32 20-25 39. 41-37 25-30 40. 45-40 30-35 41. 43-38 35x44 42. 49x40 3-9 43. 48-43 9-14 44. 38-33 14-20 45. 33-29 5-10 46. 43-39 10-15 47. 40-35 20-25 48. 39-34 15-20 49. 35-30 13-19 50. 23x14 20x9 51. 30-24 6-11 52. 24-19 1-6 53. 29-23 11-17 54. 23-18 6-11 55. 18-13 9x18 56. 28-22 17x28 57. 32x12 11-17 58. 12x21 26x17 59. 19-14 17-21 60. 27-22 25-30 61.34x25 21-26 62. 14-10 26-31 63. 37x26 16-21 64. 26x17 1-0
----
@bientôt
Patrick

<center>
Patrick KOPP - DAMAQ V1.0 niveau "Grand Master" 2-0
26 september 2006
<APPLET CODEBASE = "http://www.damweb.nl/" CODE = "webdam.Viewer.class" NAME = "webdam" ARCHIVE ="webdam/Viewer.jar" WIDTH = 360 HEIGHT = 240 HSPACE = 0 VSPACE = 0 ALIGN = middle><PARAM NAME="options" VALUE="bgcolor: b0c0a0; notation:right]3228172137322025413721263430253439301420302519232514101944391117403407113430172131271217504417222817113136270914332814203833081242381217474220254641253439301722281721123328152044390410393302083024202933241930352423292433101533291520383312174238202429201823281913153328172128230813322821323827152037322025413725304540303543383544494003094843091438331420332905104339101540352025393415203530131923142009302406112419010629231117231806111813091828221728321211171221261719141721272225303425212614102631372616212617[/damweb_position]

Vity · Post by **Vity** » Wed Sep 27, 2006 21:00

Congratulations to Patrick KOPP.
As I wrote, AI is still not comparable to other LONG TIME developed applications. I am at the beginning .
I am just testing if someone would use or like it. I need motivation for creating a new version, so if I get enough positive responses from users I will make Damaq a higher priority ... otherwise I'll back to my other open source projects. I'm not draughts player, I'm just programmer only .

Hanco Elenbaas · Post by **Hanco Elenbaas** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 11:05

Vity wrote:Congratulations to Patrick KOPP.
As I wrote, AI is still not comparable to other LONG TIME developed applications. I am at the beginning .
I am just testing if someone would use or like it. I need motivation for creating a new version, so if I get enough positive responses from users I will make Damaq a higher priority ... otherwise I'll back to my other open source projects. I'm not draughts player, I'm just programmer only .

Damag looks pretty good. I hope you will find the motivation to continue the project. It's not easy to develop one as strong as Truus or Flits or Damy. Good luck!

Jacques PERMAL · Post by **Jacques PERMAL** » Thu Sep 28, 2006 19:20

To be red : Reactions in FRANCE

FORUM FFJD

http://www.ffjd.fr/Web/site/forum/forum ... _msg=17217

steenslag · Post by **steenslag** » Sat Sep 30, 2006 00:24

Vity, I guess you are not trying to make the worlds strongest engine - you would not have chosen Java.
I can think of two or three niches; functionality which does not exist or is provided by non-free, non Open Source software.
-an application which is able to represent animated games or game-fragments with sidevariations and analysis on Internet. (Without third-party-applets).
-Smooth editing software which does the same, for print. Well, not animated, but print-quality diagrams and text.
-Checkerproblem solving software. It should specifically look for second solutions (cooks). It should be able to check batches of problems.

Some remarks: Damaq's engine could benefit from an endgame database. http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjetten/dameng.html#database

Another remark: in this position Damaq goes astray. It plays the solution correctly until it plays 4x36? on my machine (AMD athlon something, 1G memory).

-In chess-computing, engines have been separated from the GUI for a long time. There are engine builders and there are GUI-builders. Their products communicate through a standard interface. Good design, I think. Who will take the initiative?

Anyway, whatever you choose to do, good luck.

Vity · Post by **Vity** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 21:22

steenslag wrote:Vity, I guess you are not trying to make the worlds strongest engine - you would not have chosen Java.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. I didn't plan to make strongest engine. Damaq is intended for mid-advanced players to improve their playing skills (that was my original idea)

steenslag wrote: I can think of two or three niches; functionality which does not exist or is provided by non-free, non Open Source software.
-an application which is able to represent animated games or game-fragments with sidevariations and analysis on Internet. (Without third-party-applets).
-Smooth editing software which does the same, for print. Well, not animated, but print-quality diagrams and text.
-Checkerproblem solving software. It should specifically look for second solutions (cooks). It should be able to check batches of problems.

I would like to add a support for the printing as you mentioned. I like user comfort so I would like to add yet more functions than Turbo Dambase has at its last version.

steenslag wrote: Some remarks: Damaq's engine could benefit from an endgame database. http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjetten/dameng.html#database

Another remark: in this position Damaq goes astray. It plays the solution correctly until it plays 4x36? on my machine (AMD athlon something, 1G memory).

Thanks for your recommendations. I will look at it.

steenslag wrote: -In chess-computing, engines have been separated from the GUI for a long time. There are engine builders and there are GUI-builders. Their products communicate through a standard interface. Good design, I think. Who will take the initiative?

Nice idea. There is no standard /communication protocol/ for draughts engines (at least any recommendation like PDN is). The initiative should take all computer draughts developers .

I released the next version of Damaq - version 1.01. It fixes a few minor bugs and adds a French translation (thanks to Yves Hirel).
To download this version click on the link in the first topic.

ildjarn · Post by **ildjarn** » Wed Oct 04, 2006 23:20

Vity wrote:Nice idea. There is no standard /communication protocol/ for draughts engines

Frank Mesander created DamExchange a few years ago. See http://www.mesander.nl/damexchange/edxptech.htm

BertTuyt · Post by **BertTuyt** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 20:20

In Chess the standard interface between GUI and Engine is based on the UCI Protocol (Universal Chess Interface.
For Draughts Michel Grimminck and myself started the definition of a protocol for Draughts which is called GUIDE (Graphical User Interface Draughts Engines) .
Although we did not completely standardize we both implemented this protocol (more or less) in our Draughts Programs (Dragon and Damage).
In this implementation the Engine and GUI are separate processes.
Communication is carried out via TCP/IP (so basically its possible to use an engine on a different computer).
Anyone who is interested in developing Draughts engines (without investing too much in the details of windows), can contact me for the description of the GUIDE protocol and/or specific Engine source dealing with the communication and message handling with the GUI.
In this way one is able to concentrate on the Draughts algorithms.
You can download Damage2000 on http://members.chello.nl/h.tuyt
The engine is relatively weak.
The engine i use in tournaments is much stronger but requires a 64bit processor, 64bit OS and 2 GigaByte Memory due to many tables the evaluation function requires.

Bert

FeikeBoomstra · Post by **FeikeBoomstra** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 21:43

Are there people interested in setting up an open source project with the purpose to create the ultimate draught engine?

I myself created a program once, GUI in python, Engine in C, but I was disapointed in the realised search depth and playing strength.

I would like to discuss the various issues, share ideas and maybe develop a project together.

Any ideas?

Kind regards,

Feike Boomstra

Vity · Post by **Vity** » Sat Oct 14, 2006 09:39

BertTuyt wrote:In Chess the standard interface between GUI and Engine is based on the UCI Protocol (Universal Chess Interface.
For Draughts Michel Grimminck and myself started the definition of a protocol for Draughts which is called GUIDE (Graphical User Interface Draughts Engines) .
Although we did not completely standardize we both implemented this protocol (more or less) in our Draughts Programs (Dragon and Damage).
In this implementation the Engine and GUI are separate processes.
Communication is carried out via TCP/IP (so basically its possible to use an engine on a different computer).
Anyone who is interested in developing Draughts engines (without investing too much in the details of windows), can contact me for the description of the GUIDE protocol and/or specific Engine source dealing with the communication and message handling with the GUI.
In this way one is able to concentrate on the Draughts algorithms.
You can download Damage2000 on http://members.chello.nl/h.tuyt
The engine is relatively weak.
The engine i use in tournaments is much stronger but requires a 64bit processor, 64bit OS and 2 GigaByte Memory due to many tables the evaluation function requires.
Bert

Bert, would you be able to create a first draft of the GUIDE protocol and place it eg. on wikipedia (in the similar form like PDN has)? Then we can start to discuss possible details.
Eg. I guess that this protocol should support most of variants of draughts (not only International rules, but eg. Spanish, Czech... as well).

World Draughts Forum

Damaq v1.01

Damaq v1.01

Translators wanted

Communication GUI --> Engine

Re: Communication GUI --> Engine